In January 2015 I began to intensely seek only Jesus Christ. I began to study him, to seek him early and constantly with intensity. It was the best thing I could have ever done, I have come to know him in a much greater way than ever before. Looking back I see this as a fixing of my eyes on Jesus Christ (as described in Hebrews 12) alone. It has made all the difference. This resulted in me wanting to share and post blogs and Facebook comments about his church.
As a result of this I have written hundreds of thousands of words of blog posts, chapters, sermon notes. I have connected with amazing authors and leaders like Frank Viola who leads the deeper Christian life network. A group of Christians in Austin who are blogging and podcasting and sharing Christ and teaching about the ecclesia. Richard Jacobsen and his Unchurching book and Facebook network. There are many others too numerous to list.
I have discovered an amazing bible teacher named T. Austin Sparks. Who I’ve not heard anyone teach like he does about the Lord’s purpose and his church. This personal pursuit of Christ has inspired a fiction book that is ready for publish and nonfiction book being written. I’ve learned the major difference between studying on my own and the Lord intentionally teaching me something.
Don’t Talk or Post About Her
I’ve also learned that there is something that I just cannot easily talk about. That something is church practices. I can’t talk about church because it sometimes creates hostility, hurts, offends, challenges and can cause division among friends and family. Those who are loyal to and who attend churches or the idea of typical church.
If I get insight about a certain church practice that we are neglecting or have added and continue out of tradition. And if I talk or post about it, someone is almost always offended. Someone suddenly wont speak to me, someone thinks I am a know it all, the unfriends and the cold shoulders increase. Church practices are extremely controversial, much more so than I had anticipated. And to talk about her is especially a challenge to those who make church their profession. (I get the ‘don’t tell me how to do my job’ remarks.)
Teaching and seeking and proclaiming things about the Lord Jesus himself is one thing that almost always unites Christian people (Christology). But teaching and proclaiming things about church practices (ecclesiology) can be extremely divisive. Some have estimated there are at least 33,000 different denominations among protestant Christians alone.
Why Jesus but not His Church
Why can we exalt and talk about the Lord but we can’t get along as it concerns his body in the earth (the ecclesia)?
Even within congregations you can sometimes see this dividing over doctrine. The competent leaders are good and snuffing it out and creating compliance. To counter this we set up king-like structures of hierarchy within “churches”. And as a result of this some of us shop around to find some our preferred king that we like and agree with then stay there. We then idly listen in order to agree with them for decades (I’ve been guilty of this).
Tower of Babel All Over?
Some have said that the divisions in church are a Tower of Babel-like phenomena where God actually is confusing our “languages”. Confusing our languages to the extent that we are trying to reach him in our own human strength and power. Like Babel, mans religious reaching toward the heavens to make a name for ourselves causes the confusion of our languages (denominations).
I believe this is the case. As we choose our ‘king’, our ‘great man with authority’ to tell us what to do, what to think, to essentially be our religious example and hero. This humanistic religious thing in order to reach God and make a name for ourselves (or our great pastor or our great church or our great denomination). To the extent that we do this, he confuses ‘our languages’ so that we naturally divide over time.
IF this is accurate and I am correct in describing what is happening, then I’ve seen this done by people with good motives, who honesty don’t know better. Our traditions are so entrenched and assumed I can barely blame anyone for thinking this way.
When I think of the tower of babel story, I think of men not surrendered to the Lord, I think of idolatry. I think of men trying to be God, similarly to how Satan tried to exalt himself. I don’t think of Christians trying to reach God on their own human strength and wisdom because I am one of them, I know their motivations, but maybe, just maybe those people at Babel were a lot like us and the story of Babel was written for us. Played out and written for our benefit because that is exactly what the modern church is doing.
What a Disappointment
So in the mean time I cannot discuss the eclessia of Jesus Christ openly unless I want to offend friends, family and ‘church authorities’ and possibly cause division among people that I don’t want to divide or separate from.
I can’t tell you how deeply disappointing this has been to me. How frustrating its been to be labeled as a rebel or selfish and to be misunderstood. People assume they know my motives without a conversation. I cannot openly discuss or post about the main thing that I want to discuss. Being the body of Jesus Christ, the house of God on earth. The very thing which the Spirit of God is actively teaching me about. I cannot share about… without hostility.
I hope that there is coming a day though when we will be able to open about this without hostility and restraint. It may be in a book or on this site or to a group of friends but for now Jesus seems to often be saying “don’t post that”.
